Supernatural: "Slash Fiction" Review

It's psycho Butch and Sundance.

While it was good fun to see Jensen Ackles and Jared Padalecki playing variations on Dean and Sam, I was happy the title of the episode, "Slash Fiction", was not taken literally. If the promos for the show hadn't given away the fact that the Leviathans would be impersonating Dean and Sam, then the opening scene of them robbing a bank and killing everyone inside would have had more impact. The murderous rampage was disturbing and gruesome (which it was supposed to be), but it was still fun to see the lighter moments of the actors playing different characters who were only pretending to be the Winchesters.

Supernatural has always excelled at poking fun at itself, and Robbie Thompson, in his first Supernatural writing job, did a great job mixing in quippy dialog and funny jabs at the characters with the fast-moving storyline. Dean's Air Supply moment and defense of Patrick Swayze were hilarious and I especially liked the conversation between fake Dean and Sam discussing how annoying it was to have to pretend to be the Winchesters where Sam's healthy diet was described as "eating righteousness" and the Leviathan Dean refused to switch bodies because he liked Dean's hair better. The head Leviathan declining to resurrect Dean and Sam again because "those boys coming back from the dead again starts to strain credulity" was another great line. I always like when Supernatural winks at criticism.

The introduction of Frank Devereaux (Kevin McNally) was fun; he was like Supernatural's version of the Lone Gunmen from the X-Files, meaning that he was completely paranoid. It was about time someone told the Winchesters that if they really wanted to fly under the radar they needed to ditch the rock aliases and the Impala. I hope they find a way to use him again in the future; it would be nice if they had more options than always going to Bobby when they need some help.

That dude in the background really needs to pay attention to his surroundings

The main downside of the episode's storyline was that there were elements that felt much too reminiscent of previous plotlines. It was a nice touch for the Leviathans to refer back to Season 1 episodes in their destructive tour of the country, but I was disappointed that after seeing the Leviathans in action, the sheriff (Battlestar Galactica's Michael Hogan in much too small of a role) agreed to cover up the real story and tell the FBI that the Winchesters were dead. This was the same thing that happened with Agent Henriksen in Season 3. Even Devereaux was a reminder of Ash, the show's previous surveillance expert.

The other part of the episode that was too familiar was Sam and Dean separating in the end. We all knew Sam would eventually find out Dean killed Amy and that it would be a point of contention between the two of them. Leaving this revelation to the end of the episode, during yet another conversation that takes place next to the Impala during the final minutes, only added to making this feel like a rerun. There was no suspense in the cliffhanger - we know the brothers will be working together again next week, thanks to the preview. In addition, we have already seen them separate in previous seasons. What would have worked better as a cliffhanger would have been to stop at the revelation that Sam found out about Amy and let us wonder until the next episode how the brothers will handle this conflict.

After last week's episode in which the Winchesters gave up on eliminating murderous witches after failing on their first try, I'm glad that they were back to being more diligent with the Leviathans this week. Or at least Bobby was back to being diligent. I liked that after Bobby tried everything he could think of with his extensive knowledge of fighting the supernatural, it was something as common as Borax (and decapitation) that did the trick. The discovery of how to hurt the Leviathans with Borax was a little silly, but Bobby and Sheriff Mills were so cute together that they made the scene work. Add this new knowledge to the fact that Crowley will almost certainly be willing to work with them after being shunned by the head Leviathan, and there was a lot of progress this week.